Review of Numerical Methods for the Analysis of Arbitrarily-Shaped Microwave and Optical Dielectric Waveguides

This paper presents are view of the numerical methods for the analysis of the homogeneous and inhomogeneons,isotropic and anisotropic, microwave and optical dielectric waveguides with arbitrarily-shaped cross sections.The characteristics of various methods are compared,and a set of qualittative criteria to guide the selection of an appropriate method for a given problem is proposed. The main approaches discussed are those of point matching, integral equations, finite difference, and finite element.